


Coal Black and the Poisoner Queen

by GuesssWho



Category: Faerie Folklore, Schneewittchen | Snow White (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Faeries Are Nasty, Gen, Grim Faerie Tales, Putting the Grim Back In Grimm's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 18:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3497807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuesssWho/pseuds/GuesssWho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason 'Fairest' is capitalized . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coal Black and the Poisoner Queen

Once upon a time, not long ago enough, there was a great Queen who was beautiful and magical--and much too careless and petty to deserve either. She owned a magic wand and a magic mirror, with which she made everything around her golden and gazed at herself endlessly.

But one day she thought she might have seen a wrinkle on her face, and asked her mirror if she was truly the Fairest in the kingdom.

"Never," said the mirror. "You were never half so Fair as the woman with hair as black as coal, whose name is never spoken."

And the Queen howled with rage and broke the mirror, and used her magic wand to make a perfect apple full of poison. She went out into the land with it, and asked everyone she met where she could find the Fair woman with black coal hair.

Eventually she came to a forest grotto, with glorious trees and a sparkling pond and a woman wearing the finest silks who smiled and stood with infinite grace, her black hair darker than coal and shining like a raven's wing. She was more beautiful than the Queen had ever dreamed, but the Queen was strong of will and offered the apple even though the woman was more beautiful than the dawn.

The woman smiled and ate the apple, then laughed and offered the Queen her fill of fruit from the trees around them. The Queen was somewhat surprised that the woman had yet to die, but decided to eat of the fruit while she waited for the poison to work.

A few days later, a woodsman found the Queen under a tree. She was half-dead from trying to eat every fruit in the clearing, seeds and all, and it took five people to drag her away. She had bark stuck in her teeth for weeks after, and she twitched whenever she saw an apple for the rest of her life.

 

You see, there is a difference between fairest and Fairest; one is the most pretty, while the other is most fey. And the Fair Folk are not ones any mortal should wish to meet. Especially the Queen of Air and Darkness.


End file.
